GAA player Mark McGovern thankful of second chance after critical injury

Doctors have hailed Mark McGovern’s recovery as a miracle, after the Fermanagh GAA player sustained a serious brain injury following an off-the-ball incident in San Francisco last June.
Speaking from San Francisco, in one of his first interviews since the incident, McGovern, 23, told the Irish Voice that he has a blurred memory of the events of June 25.

Only five days after arriving on the West Coast, during his first appearance with the Ulster club in San Francisco, McGovern was allegedly struck by a member of the opposing team in the second half of the game.

A San Francisco Celts player, Patrick Power, 26, was arrested in relation to the incident but was released without charge pending further investigation. He was handed a 96-week Gaelic games ban from a San Francisco Competitions Control Committee.

Meanwhile, McGovern has been advised by doctors he will never play Gaelic football again.
“I remember the first half of the game,” said McGovern, who has been left with colossal medical bills amounting to more than $1 million for his treatment in the U.S.

“I remember where the ball was, and running towards it, I went to go for it and the next thing I knew I was laying on the ground. I cannot really remember waking up,” he told the Irish Voice.

“Even the doctor told me that some doctors wouldn’t have even tried to keep me alive. I must have been in a bad state, death was at the door. Definitely God or someone was looking down on me.”
Following the incident McGovern was immediately rushed to San Francisco General Hospital where he remained in critical condition for over two weeks.

“The kind of injury that Mark has was deep inside the brain. It's the kind of injury that we see when someone has had a high speed motor vehicle accident, like crashing at 60-miles an hour and the car rolls over,” Professor Shirley Stiver, a neurosurgeon at San Francisco General Hospital told the BBC.

“Many times similar patients with a very similar neurological exam or a very similar x-ray picture would have died on the scene,” Stiver added.

Back at home in Belcoo in Fermanagh, the phone call from San Francisco came at 6 a.m. on the Sunday morning following the incident.

McGovern’s sister Grace recalls the moment vividly. Mark being the youngest of four siblings, when they first heard the news the family feared the worst.

“I went up and saw my sister outside the house crying on the phone. When I asked what was wrong she said, ‘It’s the child,’ as she’s the eldest. ‘He’s is in a coma in San Fran after an injury,’” Grace told the Irish Voice.

“We were told you need to get out here ASAP and that he may not make it through the night. Within a couple of hours there were around 20 people here in the house. It was almost like a wake.”

By two o’clock that day McGovern’s parents were on board a flight destined for the U.S., while his sisters and girlfriend Jessica followed on Monday. On the trip across the Atlantic the family was
concerned Mark’s condition would have deteriorated.

“We were just holding our phones by our sides. We were thinking people were holding out on information and feared that Mark had gone,” Graces said.

When they arrived at San Francisco General Hospital it was difficult to see a normally energetic Mark lying in a coma.

“I remember seeing him in the bed. There were machines everywhere, bleeps going on and tubes down his throat and he was lying there lifeless,” Grace recalls.

“In the first two weeks they were just trying to save his life,” she added. McGovern remained in a coma for five weeks, during which time his family maintained a bedside vigil.

As well as battling with a brain injury, he also contracted pneumonia and MRSA, but despite his weakened state he miraculously fought the viruses off.

Grace, who was forced to cancel her wedding due to the incident, recalled the difficult first weeks.
“Basically we just sat and waited,” she said.

“Every day he gave us something. The first day he flickered his eyelid, the next day he flicked his finger.

“The nurse warned it was probably his reflexes but I’m certain Mark knew we were there, subconsciously,” she says, recalling the tenacity of her brother.

McGovern himself barely remembers emerging from his coma, “When I woke up first it was very strange,” he said. Unable to talk or walk, doctors warned the recovery process would be slow.
“It’s very frustrating, when you know you can do stuff,” he says.